Understood, but a 1GHz c3 (on the box I showed) is a bit more CPU than
the 233/266MHz Geode on the Soekris & WRAP boards.
You'll probably get something approaching similar performance with
either solution. I don't know if you've got the software written to
control VLAN framing, packet filtering, etc with the 4-port switch card
or not. If not, then pfSense is going to see this as a single Ethernet
port, and all the traffic that stays "on" the switch will be invisible
to pfSense.
By bridging multiple NICs together, you can gain visibility (and
control) off all the traffic that passes through the box.
I'm not saying that the 4-port switch card is "bad", or that bridging
multiple NICs together is "better". Each application is different.
I think a variant of pfSense that supported the 8 port GigE switch card
that I pointed to would be really cool.
Holger Bauer wrote:
If you bridge NICs and create a switch this way your throughput will be limited
by the bus and the CPU. If you use a switchcard like I suggested the switch
will take care of the networktraffic between these ports. I get 90 mbit/s with
this card between the switchports though the firewall itself is only driven by
a pentium 233MMX. Of course, traffic going to other interfaces will be limited
by cpu speed and bus capacity. The card that I suggested has 5 autouplink
ports. So if a soekris 4801 is fast enough for your needs and you only want to
have the switch integrated this is an option to consider.
Holger
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Thompson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 10:57 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [pfSense-discussion] Embedded hardware
Holger Bauer wrote:
Sorry, the link is in german but you should get the facts:
http://www.level-one.de/products3.php?sklop=14&id=520056
it's a NIC with integrated 5 port switch. If you use a
soekris 4801 you could add such a card to the PCI slot. I use
a similiar card with one of my routers (
http://routerdesign.com/routers/36/pic02.jpg ,
http://routerdesign.com/routers/36/pic04.jpg ).
Holger
OK, my error.
here is something similar (if not identical, I can't tell if
it has the
Kendin chip on it or not): http://www.outletpc.com/c3442.html
But you could still potentially bridge the 5 (or 6) individual
interfaces in pfSense, and get something fairly 'switch
like', too. No?
Also, using the card you describe, the forwarding rate is going to be
limited when the packets have to pass through over the PCI bus.
This is more interesting (especially in light of the recent
discussions):
http://www.dssnetworks.com/v3/gigabit_pcie_6468.asp
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